Arrogance crept into Congress, lost touch with people: Rahul

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said that arrogance had crept into the Congress in 2012 as they has lost touch with people. He said the Congress decided policies and vision through conversation and not by imposition. On a two-week tour to the US, speaking in the University of California in Berkeley, Rahul attacked Prime Minister Narandra Modi saying the decisions like demonetisation taken without asking Chief Economic Adviser and Parliament had caused tremendous damage to the country. On the 1984 riot victims, he said: “I am with them in their quest for justice. I strongly condemn violence against anybody. I lost my father and grandmother to violence. If I don’t understand violence, then who will?”

Replying to a question of dynastic politics, he gave examples of Akhilesh Yadav, Stalin and Anurag Thakur, saying, “Most of the country runs like this, so don’t go after me.”On a question of being a reluctant politician, he said the BJP had a tremendous machine on social media. “All day, they spread abuses about me, and the operation is run by the gentleman who is running the country. There is a BJP machine, about 1,000 guys sitting on computers and telling you about me.” He said: “For nine years, I worked behind the scenes with Manmohan Singh, P Chidambaram, Jairam Ramesh and others on J&K.” He said: “By 2013, we basically broke the back of terror, I hugged former prime minister Manmohan Singh and told him it was one of the biggest achievements.” He said the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) had been instrumental in bringing youngsters in politics, but the day Prime Minister Modi made alliance with the PDP, he destroyed them.”So he (PM Modi) massively opened up the space for the terrorists in Kashmir, and you saw the increase in violence,” he added.Rahul said the Congress government had given the Kashmiri youth a “vision” and employment opportunities ANI